William Stickles: Woodsman, Marksman, Civil War Union Soldier
Brother Bob Bartelt, of Major General John Gibbon, Camp #4, Wisconsin Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, did a presentation at Mukwonago’s Red Brick Museum on Sunday, July 23rd, “in charac-ter” and spoke in the first person while dressed as the “woodsman/hunter” persona of William Stickles. In general, there were 2 parts to the presentation. One part was about Mr. Stickles life before and after his service in the Civil War. He and his family had moved to Wisconsin only a year or two prior to Fort Sumter. As a teenager in Pennsylvania, he had first honed his skills as a lumber-jack/woodcutter and as a hunter. The other and more detailed portion of the presentation had to do with the exploits of the 5th Wisconsin Infantry regiment. I decided to highlight four of the battles in which the 5th Wis-consin played a key role. These were 2nd Fredericksburg (the “Forgotten Front” of the battle of Chancellorsville); Rappahannock Station; The Wilderness; and Spotsylvania Court House.
Stickles was assigned to Company F. Company F was one of the five companies of the 5th that was put in the front line at 2nd Fredericksburg when the union forces attacked the wall at the “sunken road” at the base of Marye’s Heights on May 3, 1863 subsequently overran the rebel forces behind that wall and those defending the Heights. The 5th was part of the so-called “Light Division” which had the unenviable task of taking that ground. While the 5th was not a part of any of the ill-fated 7 charges Burnside had ordered 5 months earlier, in December 1862, at the battle of Fredericksburg, those men were all well-aware of the loss of life and the carnage the Army of the Potomac had suffered back then. Companies of the 5th were credited with being the first regiment to get over the wall and the first wave, along with their “sister” regiment, the 6th Maine, to reach the top of Marye’s Heights, cap-turing a battery of the vaunted Washington Artillery.
Along with the 6th Maine, the 5th Wisconsin was the group that overran key rebel defenses on the north bank of the Rappahannock which broke the Confederate line. The re-sult of this battle in November 1863 was that Lee ‘s Army of Northern Virginia was forced to withdraw off the Rap-pahannock and to retreat to the Rapidan River.
At the Wilderness the, 5th Wisconsin managed to capture virtually an entire Confederate regiment, the 25th Virginia.
Stickles’s regiment also distinguished itself twice at Spot-sylvania Court House. On May 10th the 5th Wisconsin (along with 11 other infantry units) was specifically selected by Col. Emory Upton to participate in his concentrated as-sault that day on the western side of the “Muleshoe.” While quite successful at first, that attack ran out of steam due to lack of coordinated support from other troops that had been expected as part of the overall plan. On May 12th the 5th Wisconsin was deployed as a part of the second wave of attack on the Muleshoe, eventually being situated with its flank just a few yards from the rebel entrenchments. The fire from the 5th’s rifles eventually was responsible for the downing of the famous 22-inch diameter tree which now is on display in the Smithsonian.